It’s Official. The Theme Sucks

 

Really guys? Akuma vs Shao Khan?

Is that your best?

 

What’s the theme of the next fight? Shao Khan vs Darth Vader because they say “All too easy?” and have telekinesis?

 

It doesn’t work as a “final boss” fight because Akuma was never a Street Fighter boss. Sagat was the boss of 1, Bison of 2, Bison again of Alpha, Gill of 3, Seth of 4, and Bison again of 5. Akuma was the guy that would jump out and kill Bison in 2 Turbo if you did things right. That makes him more thematically connected to Rain or Reptile than Shao Khan.

 

MK also did secret boss fights first. I’m just going to say that because I’ve always been more of an MK kid than a SF kid. Came with owning a Genesis instead of a SNES. Genesis had the blood code. Genesis did what Nintendon’t.

 

REMEMBER DULLARD!

 

It also doesn’t work as “ultimate antagonist vs ultimate antagonist.” As far as main character Ryu is concerned, yeah, Akuma is the ultimate antagonist of the series, and Akuma is the strongest character in the Street Fighter verse only surpassed by absolute end-of-story Ryu. But Shao Khan was never the ultimate threat of MK. Just as Shang-Tsung plays second best to Shao Khan, Shao Khan plays second best to Onaga, Shinnock, and Kronika.

 

So what’s the theme? Shao Khan killed Bison and Akuma killed Shang-Tsung so now they fight? Lame. Are you guys going to do Black Panther vs Nightwing next?

 

So Who Wins?

 

I think everyone’s gut is telling them Akuma wins. I know mine is. Think about this from the perspective of guys that just play the games and don’t hyper-fixate on fanfic interpretations and hyperbole filled fighter endings. Shao Khan is a big dude with a hammer but he’s not much of a martial artist. His best move is to spam shoulder charges. He doesn’t do anything fancy like Akuma, no one-legged shadow-steps, no diagonal fireballs, and no insta-kill super moves that require SNK level inputs. He doesn’t train like Akuma. He sits on his throne and narrates Mortal Kombat until the player fights him. He also loves to taunt and leave himself open. Boy, does he love to taunt. Goro liked to taunt in MK 1, he’d often stop to pose like Mr. Universe Outworld edition, but Shao Khan took it to another level. It was part of his WWE Conan gimmick. He could kick your ass easily if he decided to spam his shoulder charge move with insane chip damage, but that wasn’t his character. He had to wag his finger at you and tell you that you suck, even if he had only a sliver of a health bar left.

 

Some supervillains are just dedicated to their bits, you know. If Dr. Doom was offered yet another cosmic power upgrade (it would be like, his tenth) if he would never monologue again, he would walk. That’s just how supervillains are.

 

So you got a guy known for leaving himself open vs a guy with perhaps the best known dim mak move in video games. 

 

You see how the gut logic goes, right?

 

But my brain is telling me Shao Khan is going to win, because my brain knows Swank and how he thinks.

 

I got you read, Swank. I got the yomi.

 

Download. Complete.

 

The who-would-win sphere is in a hyper-permissive era. Everyone is faster than light. Everyone can blow up planets. Nothing is hyperbole. Nothing is a joke. Jack’s Iron Giant parody ending in Tekken Tag Tournament 2? That’s not a joke, that’s legit. He can blow up a meteor and because Heihachi can fight off several Jacks he can blow up several meteors.

 

Akuma is going to start with meteor-killing powers because of, god, Capcom Fighting Evolution, right?

 

God. Bringing in feats from Capcom Fighting Evolution… At that point you might as well scale Akuma to Galactus. What, you think Red Earth is canon to Street Fighter?

 

But Akuma isn’t going to stop there. He’s going to get several times meteor level powers, just watch. You see, E. Honda’s Street Fighter V ending has Hakkan throw him at a meteor to save the world. That totally wasn’t a joke guys. All endings are real. The ending where Bison takes over the world? Canon. The ending where Makoto beats up everyone? Also canon. I bet you didn’t know Makoto is the strongest Street Fighter character, did you? According to Swank logic, she is. All hail the tomboy queen.

 

 

So what’s Shao Khan got?

 

Stupid ending scaling to. That’s really what this fight is. Stupid scaling vs stupid scaling. You see in 3, if you beat him as Rayden, the game says you then lead an army against him in a fight that shakes the Earth to its core…even though you beat him like everyone beats him…by 1v1ing him in an Outworld arena. No one shook the Earth to its core. He turned to rock and exploded.

 

But we have to take such statements at face value, because Swank.

 

A more reasonable argument for Shao winning is that he can put the soul suc on people like his underling Shang Tsung. That should work. Not my fault that Rayden gave soul suc protection to everyone on team Earth Realm, even Johnny Cage (why not Kage?). The counter-argument is that the crazy Mexican immortal character no one remembers from 5 eats people, and when he eats people he consumes their souls, and one time he put Akuma in his belly like some kind of disturbing Deviantart image and Akuma split him open.

 

No, I’m not buying that would cover having his soul rippled from his body. I’m not buying it at all.

 

Shao puts the suc on and wins. 

 

Oh well. Lame fight, but Capcom’s obnoxious villains sue finally gets what’s been coming to him for decades. And Swank has to write a fighting game boss repurposed as a Trump parody as winning, so that’s fun.

 

And as a capstone for Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat, Death Battle could have done worse. You know they could have done worse. You know they could have done Kung Lao vs Ken. And it’s only appropriate that MK wins. Modern Street Fighter can’t even release a finished game. Meanwhile Mortal Kombat is over here with Spawn and Rambo money. Capcom will never make another Mahvel. NRS is more likely to get to use Marvel characters at this rate.

MK deserves the win. Because it’s official, Street Fighter sucks.